Film Reviews by Alphaville

This Russian attempt at a Viking film is full of grizzled men shouting and battling each other in forests and forts. It’s also incoherent, completely lacking in dramatic content and ineptly directed. It will soon have you reaching for the off-button.

You’d think a message movie about a Washington lobbyist would be just about as riveting as the slew of films about the financial crisis or baseball. You’d be right. The screenplay is nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is and Jennifer Chastain’s central performance not nearly arresting enough to carry the picture. Her flippant, know-all lobbyist soon starts to grate. To show anger, she even resorts to that clichéd action of clearing her desk with a sweep of her arm.

We know the story will end in court because it’s all told in flashback. This is often a sign of a film that lacks confidence in its ability to hold audience attention. It’s a joyless, cold-hearted movie that has no surprises until the last few minutes. John Madden directs competently but without flair.

A husband abandons his wife and two children during an avalanche scare on a skiing holiday in the Alps. The film explores the emotional fallout. It’s something of a tour de force, with improvised dialogue and static shots that are held to the point of tedium. Still, the characters’ arcs hold the attention for the most part and there are some beautifully filmed snow scenes. Although overrated by arthouse critics, it’s worth a watch if you’re in a mellow mood.

A slow, compact tale of three border guards caught up in a drug-smuggling operation on the US–Mexico border. Naturalistic filming mitigates against the drama and there’s little viewer involvement. The funereal score doesn’t help the slow pacing. Nevertheless, the 82 minute run time just about maintains the attention and the New Mexico desert landscapes are striking.

This is a bunch of special effects in search of a film. There’s even the standard cartoonish spacecraft chase that’s as boring as anything in the Star Wars franchise. Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis lack star quality. The backstory is so ridiculous and jargon-filled that the main function of our insipid heroine is to ask questions about it so that other characters can explain it to the audience. The direction is staid. The score is laughable generic muzak.

The Wachowskis (writers and directors) have previous but this is their worst project yet. The whole adds up to two boring hours you’ll never get back.

Hard-boiled Korean thriller about a cop caught between the battle lines in dirty political dealings. It’s an immersive experience. The acting may be a bit in-your-face for western tastes and the film’s central section perhaps layers on the intrigue for too long, but every scene crackles with menace.

After 70 minutes there’s one of the most exciting car chases you’ll ever see, with the screen filled with heavy rain and startling images. Like in Gravity, the virtual camera movements are so impossible you’ll want to watch it again. After the viewer is given a breathing space the extended 30 minute no-holds-barred action climax will have you hiding behind the sofa. Unlike in many modern Hollywood thrillers, the action is realistic and involving, tracked smoothly by the camera and not sliced to pieces by rapid editing. It may be too bleak and bloody for some, but director Kim Sung-Soo delivers one helluva ride.

Few directors shoot action with as much flair as Kim Jee-Woon. In his first American venture, along with his regular DP Ji Yung Kim, he brings his talent to a modern-day western. Ageing small-town sheriff Arnie Schwarzenegger and his motley crew of deputies have to stop a drugs baron and his henchmen from crossing the border to Mexico. Great New Mexico desert locations, well-drawn minor characters and a fine line in humour add to the excitement.

This may be a genre film and a vehicle for Arnie, but Kim uses it to make visually striking cinema. During a prison break, for instance, he uses a crane shot so that we can join the baddies as they slide down a zipwire from the rooftop. And a car chase through sweetcorn fields is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Exhilarating stuff. Fans of Kim’s Korean work will not be disappointed.

This globe-trotting old-school action thriller hits all the right spots. Director Pierre Morel, who also made Taken, directs with a firm hand and a steady camera. The well-paced plot rattles along with barely a dull moment. With so many laughable thrillers in the John Wicke mould around, it’s good to see some tense set-pieces with realistic action and resourceful baddies who can shoot straight. Even the climax manages to be both silly and exciting at the same time.

With a more charismatic leading man The Gunman could have been a classic of its kind. A beefed-up Sean Penn nevertheless manages to carry the part and it’s fun seeing Mark Rylance trying to play a baddie. Not a classic in the manner of the first Bourne film, but a solid four-star thriller vastly underestimated in the States. Pierre Morel is building a formidable reputation for this kind of realistic action thriller. If only he could have replaced Greengrass on the later Bourne films…

Good-natured old-fashioned British drama about making a Second World War propaganda film to boost morale after Dunkirk. One character complains that to American audiences ‘understatement translates as a lack of oomph’. Their Finest is an example of a film that could do with more oomph. The only plot point you won’t expect is the ending, and that’s a complete tonal mistake anyway.

Another character says that a film should be ‘worth an hour and a half of someone’s life’. This is little more than undemanding Sunday night television fare with a score that’s awash with lush orchestral music and plinky-plink piano. Nevertheless it bowls along pleasantly enough if you’re in the mood, with a romantic subplot, engaging dialogue and an uproarious turn from Bill Nighy as a cantankerous actor.

Another winner from Kim Jee-woon. This Korean box-office smash has the feel of an epic WW2 French Resistance film, except it’s set in 1928 Korea during the Japanese occupation. Fans of the director will not be disappointed. The prologue alone is a dazzling piece of filmmaking – a rooftop chase as exciting as anything in Crouching Tiger Hidden Tiger but without the wirework.

The plot pitches a resistance group against a sadistic Japanese cop and a conflicted Korean cop. There’s an absorbing air of menace throughout and when the film bursts into action it really moves. An extended tense set piece on a train couldn’t have been bettered by Hitchcock. The award-winning score by Mowg, which accompanies shootouts with everything from electro to Louis Armstrong, is equally exciting. There’s perhaps too much time spent plotting in back rooms but overall this is a film that makes you remember why you love cinema.

The intriguing sci-fi premise is the least ridiculous thing about this film. A CIA agent’s memory is transferred into the brain of a criminal (Kevin Costner). It has to be him because he’s a psycho thug who ‘feels nothing’ (yeah, right). Our Kev conveys the psycho thugness by looking grizzled and grunting a lot.

The first ten minutes are the best, with agent Ryan Reynolds running around London evading baddies. Shame the baddies kill him (no spoiler, it’s in the trailer). We then spend the rest of the movie with Costner having flashbacks of Reynold’s memory and acting badass. It’s risible stuff, with lots of swearing employed to convey emotion.

Costner’s the main protagonist and his character is impossible to warm too, even when (who’d have guessed?) he starts to develop a heart. It’s a fatal flaw, but he’s not the biggest joke in the film. Gary Oldman is a scriptwriter’s fantasy of a CIA chief, channelling the spirit of his cop in Leon. The James Bond-type plot has a computer nerd stealing missile launch codes, but the script never takes it seriously. Michael Pitt endures a career low in the thankless part of the nerd.

Once Ryan is gone (lucky him) the plot and acting soon become too preposterous for any response but laughter and eventual boredom.

Lo-key Aussie thriller lacks life. More of a naturalistic procedural about baddies escaping jail and stealing gold. Nothing we haven’t seen done better many times before. Brenton Thwaites is a charisma-free lead. The soporific score, with saccharine muzak for the romantic subplot, is a metaphor for the whole enterprise.

A big sprawling epic in the mould of Out of Africa and Legends of the Fall, this has a promising original backdrop – a medical mission in a First World War Turkey where Christians and Turks kill each other. But while the landscapes are suitably vast, the drama never really takes off. It jogs along pleasantly enough but for most of its length there’s no conflict, romance or any other plot device to maintain interest. The performances are oddly blank and a lush score that may begin to irritate washes over all. An hour passes before there’s any intrigue of any kind, and the ensuing melodrama fails to convince. The original concept is to be applauded, but unfortunately it’s all a bit-ho-hum.

Lo-budget, lo-key, shot with little imagination and zero visual flair, this probably looked better as a script. Watch the trailer first to see what you’re getting.

The good news is that at last there’s a Marvel film with an adult vibe – ‘a comic book film aimed at adults,’ as director James Mangold describes it on the commentary. The bad news is that if you haven’t seen previous juvenile X-Men movies you won’t understand the background or what Patrick Stewart’s role is. He and Logan (Hugh Jackman) are old and tired and hang out in the desert away from people who don’t like them. They’re mutants, you see. Charles (Patrick) has seizures that make the screen go all wavy. Logan is also Wolverine and has claws on his knuckles – must have been a bad day at the office when they dreamt that one up.

The film has a melancholy vibe concerned with ageing and mortality but the plot is complete Marvel nonsense. Charles and Logan are on the run with a mute girl who also has claws on her knuckles. Who is this film aimed at? The usual immature fanboys be bored while adults will simply find the mixture of melancholia and slashing silly.

It does get better as it goes along. The backstory becomes less relevant as it turns into a road movie through the deserts of New Mexico, for budget reasons standing-in in for the Badlands of North Dakota. There’s a formidable new baddie to deal with and the boring green-screen special effects of earlier X-Men movies are replaced by more realistic and dramatic confrontations. Nevertheless, it’ s hardly a spoiler to say it all ends in yet another slash-fest.

Best thing about the film? The director’s commentary by James Mangold. It’s almost a masterclass in film direction. He goes through one scene frame by frame, explaining the importance of Point Of View, how it differs in books and films and how it’s the failure to master POV that ruins many films. Watch the film first, then listen and learn.